Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Opening Day...of Impact 2013

Today started out like every other day, you know phone ringing at 5am and 6 and 7. Went to meet frineds for breakfast and then went over to the OGS where Champions had prime real estate. 4th row center.

Today was Business in Motion day.
Opening was a drum set and horn section that were quite good and then the star attraction a white Ford took the stage and proceeded to talk to us all.

Just kidding, the car said nothing, didn't even start, but Robert Leblanc came out along with a Ford executive to discuss why 16 million lines of code were in that rolling data center as they called the car. Video for the EVOS makes you want one. Gull wing doors and skeletal seats, it's still a concept but a great looking one.

Next generation of services and change coming for us to be a catalyst for the change.

We heard about 5 things business must embrace:

Put mobile first

Reinvent your business and design process

Adopt flexible and secure integration models

Be insightful and data driven

Build on open architectures

Then the GM for IBM Websphere Marie Wieck came out and laid out that MobileFirst, is the first point of contact for much of the underdeveloped world. They only have cell phones and in Africa they use them for everything and it is the only source of connectivity. There are over 4,000 PURE systems installed in over 90 countries.

The keynote was from Forest Whitaker who was discussing his partnerships that are aimed at bringing peace to various parts of the world through his Peace Earth Foundation. They leverage Skype for their interactions if anyone wondered.

Before closing Marie said that 71 countries are represented here at Impact in attendance and over 170 countries are watching or listening in on the internet.

After lunch I was in the Reference Lounge to give a Champion talk and we shot some more video interviews. I made it out to a session or 2 and later did a hands on Worklight class. While it was not development, luckily for me, it was how to publish apps to a Worklight service and have your own App Store. I also spent time with the Worklight and MobileFirst teams today.

Seeing more friends I know from all over at the conference. Just amazing how it works out.

Tuesday I do my Ignite talk during lunch hour at the Social Playground on The Art of Troubleshooting and then at 5:15 I and 3 other IBM Websphere Champions will be hosting a mobile panel.